


Between a Picture and a Negative

by poquimo



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, One Shot, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:17:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poquimo/pseuds/poquimo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boone considers the Courier and Carla.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between a Picture and a Negative

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much just a quick one-shot with Boone comparing and contrasting in his mind the two women of his life and trying to find a way to rationalize having feelings for both that are similar, but vastly different.

She sat there, mug between two shaking hands as she smiled at him. So tired, but still so beautiful. Her red hair had lost its new sheen, the dye wearing thin in the sand and wind of the wastelands. Dark roots showed at the top of her scalp and made a gradient of varying shades of red through the crimped waves of curls that lay about her bare shoulders.

He knew instantly the reason for her stage name, _Roux_ , the moment the sun had glinted off her hair.  
But in the few short rays of light that peeked through the nailed boards covering up the window of this decaying motel, it was her skin that glowed all golden brown and shimmering with just the faintest trace of sweat. It was sickness that made her warm, not the sun though, but you wouldn't know it by the way she smiled so bright. Her legs were crossed beneath her as she sat up, half hunched and breathing a faint sigh.

He sighed with her and tried to focus on the lip of the mug rather than the soft pink that stretched above her teeth. She was barely wearing anything, shed down to a tank that cut across the mid drift from the lack of available fabric and her undergarments that were dark black and hugging to the crease where her thighs met to her hips.  
He was grateful then for the dark shade of his glasses, hiding from her where his eyes did trail and linger for a moment. The tank was hot pink, clashing terribly with the red of her hair. It was no wonder it was so short, probably made from some scavenged bit of dress or blanket she'd pulled out of a salvaged building or casino bar. Whichever. All Boone knew was that she was lovely, golden and red...even with her brain half scrambled.

The scar tissue did it, the doc had said. Boone's eyes flicked to the burst of puffy skin on the left side of her hairline. She covered it with how she parted the mess of red, but with it down and in need of a wash it was plain to see. It was a mess, ugly and angry and the same hot pink color as her shirt. She got headaches from the sun. The light in her eyes. She wears shades like his on clear days. That was manageable though; a bit of steady or the prick of a stimpack would soothe it and just maybe, if he was feeling gracious, a rub to a spot behind her neck.

It was the sleep spells that worried him. Worried her too no doubt. Her eyes would be looking at him just like they were now, lively and full and awake...then a few seconds later and her eyelashes would flutter to her cheek and her mouth would go lax. She'd mumble maybe, stumble most assuredly if they were walking and soon enough her legs would crumble beneath her and down she'd go. Dead to the world.

She said the whiskey helped. A few nips from the bottle and she was good to go. Kept the dreams away. Let her sleep at night so she didn't stay up hour after hour only to black out for only a few minutes. But a few nips had become a few drinks. A few drinks to a few bottles. Boone knew a chem addict when he saw one, and an alcoholic was no harder to spot.  
He remembered when they were out, stuck on a stretch of waste so wide that their packs became too heavy and some things had to go. He'd crushed her bottles. He had found every last one and poured them on the dirt. She'd been half so shocked she didn't think to swear at him until three were lost. It was the first time she'd pulled her gun on him too, but of course she didn't fire.

You see, she needed him more than the booze. The booze didn't catch her before her head hit sand. Didn't stop the rats and coyotes from eating her alive. Boone did that. Boone did it all-- and he honestly didn't know why.

Why did he give such a damn about this girl with her fake rusty hair, her lopsided smirk and her dirty slick skin?

He looked back at her, but she seemed to shrink beneath his gaze, uncertainty furrowing across her brow as she set the mug down on the side table. Eyeing him like he was eyeing her.

"...Boone?" she asks. And there are so many questions in that one word it sends his head spinning. Thoughts falling in on themselves and through the image of two women he held in his head. 

Carla Boone. His wife. Beautiful, sophisticated, doomed Carla. The swell of her stomach was showing just barely the life that grew inside as she stood up above the heads of the Legionnaires. Numbers and bids the only sound. She was led like a saint led to the cross, like a martyr to the flame. Sentenced to suffer penitence for his sins. Carla had looked out and seen him watching through his scope and saw her deliverance in the shape of her husband, not realizing it would come as a bullet.

Then there was her. Roux. Rio. The Courier... sitting cross legged on a bed feverish, half naked and looking at him with eyes that made him question how he could ever think he'd mixed up Carla with this woman. Standing side by side they would have been like a picture and a negative and that made it sting less. That made it more acceptable to Boone that whatever it was that stirred in him when he looked at the Courier, was not the same as what made him love Carla. It would never be the same. He wasn't replacing her, he was-- something. Something he didn't know how to put into words and that thought alone sends a stab of grief into his chest because Carla would have the words. Carla would have known what to say to her that would make her understand... hell, that would make him understand.

Carla is dead. He and the Courier were alive and that was all the reasoning he could muster and in his mind it was reason enough.

“ _Boone._ ” she says again, more confident and more demanding for a response. He took in a deep breath and after a moment got up from the old couch and came to her.


End file.
